🚀 go-pugleaf

In <RODNEY.89D...@picasso.ipl.rpi.edu> rod...@picasso.ipl.rpi.edu
(Rodney Peck II) writes:
> They just talked about this end of the decade thing on Letterman.
> They say that the decade doesn't end until the end of 1990.  So there.
> Finally an authoratative answer.  (too bad he's wrong)

In article <129...@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> bri...@bari.Sun.COM (Brian Gordon) writes:
> I don't get it -- how does giving the correct answer (the decade
> doesn't end until the end of 1990) make him wrong?

It makes him wrong if a different frame of reference is used.  I
personally think that it is pretty dumb the way human beings attach some
sort of meaningful significance to the fact that we've roughly[1] gone
around the sun X times[2], where X is some integer which is evenly
divisible by ten or a hundred or whatever.  _SO_WHAT_?  Since we're
being so bloody arbitrary about years anyway, I, and apparently Rodney
and whole bunch of other people, would prefer to think of the decades as
the Sixties, the Seventies, the Eighties and so on -- "the years that
had the similar word in the way we pronounced their name".[3]  Why would
I call 1990 part of the Eighties?  Why is it "the" decade anyway?  What
is "the" decade?  The passing of every ten years that you choose to
baseline at 1 AD?  You know, a decade just ended yesterday.  And the day
before that and the one before that ad nauseum.

The calendar is arbitrary; any number of different conventions could
have been chosen with the same net effect of having a commonly accepted
basis for measuring time[4].  January 1 has no special significance
outside of human existence and some people that once upon a time decided
that this is how we would measure the passing of time.  Why not ask an
Hassidic Jew or a Moslem or any other person who doesn't give a crap
about our calendar what the meaning of 1 January 1990 vs 1 January 1991
is to him?

[1] Recall, in fact, that solar years do not match calendar years or
we wouldn't have leap years.  Calendar years are even more arbitrarily
based on _nothing_ observable in the rest of Life, the Universe and
Everything.

[2] I'm pretty certain most people aren't even _thinking_ about the
sun when New Years Eve transitions to New Years Day.

[3] This isn't entirely true; the whole point of this rant is that I'd
prefer not to attach any special aura to the passing of ten years,
especially by labelling a group of years together because of how we
numerically represent them.  1961 had a lot less in common with 1969
than 1970 did.

[4] Months don't exactly run well with the moon, either.  If you want
to flame me about calling it "arbitrary" be prepared to defend the
inherent necessity of 31-28-31-30-31-30-31-31-30-31-30-31.

Keeping it alt in the family, Dave
-- 
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